13 



example, under the radical cau are arranged words commencing with 

 the sounds of c, f, g, h, i, j, 1, m, n, p, s, ?, t, v, and y; and why, it 

 may be asked, should y or D be used as the representative of a 

 dental, rather than of a guttural, a labial, or a sibilant sound ? I 

 know of no better reason than either the relative frequency of the 

 several sounds represented by the radical, or arbitrary choice. At 

 least two-thirds of the ca^u series commence with the sounds of t, h, 

 0, or y ; the t sound embracing about 26 per cent., or more than one- 

 fourth of the whole series, — h, about 16 per cent., — c, about 14 per 

 cent., — and y, about 11 per cent., — the dental sounds largely pre- 

 dominating, and this predominance might be considered as a sufficient 

 answer to the question. 



But the Cad mean letter-wright was an autocrat, subject to the 

 control of no revisory or inquisitorial tribunal. All that his alphabet 

 would exact of him, would be sufficient diiFerence in the letters to 

 render them readily distinguishable from each other, although it 

 might also be desirable to retain sufficient resemblance to the original 

 hieroglyphs to make each letter suggestive and easily remembered. 

 The arbitrary character of the choice of symbols is evidenced by the 

 use of the same letter (P) to represent the q-sound in Hebrew,"*" the 

 r-sound in Greek, and the p-sound in Latin, — by the modern adapta- 

 tion of the Eoman alphabet to the Cherokee language, without the 

 slightest regard to the original sound of any letter, — and by the em- 

 ployment of the same forms in different positions for different sounds, 

 as A, V ; n, u ; d, b, q, p. The latter instance is curiously sugges- 

 tive of the Greek dialectic interchange of z, r, and r, — an inter- 

 change that is perhaps paralleled by the Chinese syllables CO, to cut ; 

 po, to cut; tan, a knife. 



In proceeding from the simple sounds, or letters, to the combined 

 sounds, or syllables, we are at once met with a peculiarity in the 

 Chinese which apparently precludes any possible comparison with a 

 large class of words in other languages. Not only has every syllable 

 in Chinese a meaning of its own, but in a large majority of cases the 

 syllables consist of a single consonant followed by a vowel sound. The 

 only double consonants employed in the language are initial ts and tf; 

 and no syllable in the Mandarin dialect, except the syllable ur or ul, 

 terminates in any consonant but a nasal n or ,g. Such combinations as 

 bl, br, cl, cr, &c.; sc, scl, scr, schl, sm, sn, sp, spl, spr, &c., are en- 

 tirely unknown, and therefore a large portion of the Indo-European 



* Coin-letter. 



